How-To – Daves Computer Tips

How To Change ChatGPT Personality

Jason Shuffield — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:50:10 +0000

Last week, we talked about ChatGPT and how you can stop notifications. If you missed that one, you can find it here: How To Stop ChatGPT Notifications I would like to stay on this subject and teach you something new. That is right, I’m going to teach you how to you can change the personality of ChatGPT. Yep, there is a way to adjust the way it interacts with you. The other day…

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How To Prevent Windows Updating Drivers

Jim Hillier — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:01:43 +0000

Device drivers are programs that allow the operating system to communicate with hardware devices. When it comes to driver updates, the old saying “if it isn’t broken, it doesn’t need fixing” well and truly applies. The one possible exception is graphics card drivers, which often include support for newer games/technology, but even then, the preferred option is to download updated drivers…

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Sync Time In Windows 10

Terry Hollett — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:09:27 +0000

It’s the winter for power outages around here, with possible rotating outages due to damage at the power plant. These outages can also wreak havoc on our tech. Some minor, some major. One minor problem I had because of the last outage was that the time on one of my computers was out of sync. I usually sync the clocks in my home with the computer or TV. But sometimes those times need to be…

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How To Stop ChatGPT Notifications

Jason Shuffield — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 05:47:49 +0000

Last week I started a lesson on the new subject of ChatGPT. We talked about how you could stop this AI from taking your information to teach all its AI systems. If you missed that, you can find it here: How To Stop ChatGPT Using My Data I would like to stick with this subject and teach you something else about AI. As with all programs and websites, they love to send you notifications.

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Disable TiVo Remote Back Light

Terry Hollett — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 05:16:51 +0000

One of the first problems I had with my TiVo cable service was that the batteries in my remote seemed only to last a week. I got in touch with Tech Support, and they only sent me a new remote. When you move or shake this remote in the dark, the buttons will light up. Good or bad, up for debate. I was convinced that this was one of the reasons why the batteries drained so quickly.

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2 Little Known Windows Tricks

Jim Hillier — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 05:10:19 +0000

Here are a couple of Windows tricks that I pretty much guarantee you don’t know about. This trick creates a one-click option to quickly shut down the PC, and it’s achieved via an obscure file that’s been tucked away in the System32 folder for many years: Now, when you double-click the new shortcut, a “shade” will drop halfway down the screen. Slide the shade down with the mouse to…

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How To Stop ChatGPT Using My Data

Jason Shuffield — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 05:05:56 +0000

Last week, we covered How to Create a Shortcut on your Android phone from Google Chrome. If you missed that, you can find it here: How To Create Shortcut On Android This week, I wanted to jump off this subject and talk about ChatGPT. ChatGPT has been taking over the world in the last few years. Many people use it for their jobs or personal projects. I know many companies even use it for…

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HandBrake – Save Your Own Presets

Terry Hollett — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:09:52 +0000

My movie collection file size ballooned from around 300GB to 1.2TB. I couldn’t understand why, since I only recorded a couple more movies from my cable box. I scanned through my videos only to find that the last movies copied over were 140Gb to 170GB in size. I must have picked the wrong codecs to save in Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). I wrote about this before about reducing the size of…

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How To Quickly & Easily Convert Any File

Jim Hillier — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:05:21 +0000

How would you like to have an option in the right-click menu to quickly and easily convert any file, right there in File Explorer? That’s what you get with this terrific freeware with the rather exotic name, File Converter. Thanks to fellow author and friend Marc Thomas, who recommended File Explorer in the first place. I’m not one who needs to frequently convert files, and in the past…

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Have Siri Announce Your Calls On Your iPhone

Carol Bratt — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:05:07 +0000

I know! Sounds really strange, right? Well, I guess it sounds a little strange anyway for us old folk. But that is why I am here – to bring you up to speed and teach you how to make things easier for you, or if not easier, at least fun, and you will learn something to boot! It will totally freak out your grandchildren. Ask me how I know! This is really very simple, and you should not have any…

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How To Create Shortcut On Android

Jason Shuffield — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 06:01:27 +0000

Another week, another how-to article for all of you! Last week, we covered how to customize the Google Search Widget on your mobile device. If you missed that one, you can find it here: How To Customize Google Search Widget This week, we are sticking with the Google subject. That is correct, I’m going to teach another fun feature that your mobile device offers. Have you ever wanted to add a…

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Making ISO From CD/DVD Using ImgBurn

Terry Hollett — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:58:05 +0000

For personal reasons, I’m going to make a bootable USB from a Windows 7 CD that I have. I’m going to be using a program called ImgBurn to do this. Download ImgBurn. I know. It hasn’t been updated in a while, but it still works. I put in my disc. Then I open up ImgBurn and click on “Create image file from disc”. Select your source CD/DVD and allow it a minute to prepare.

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How To Customize Google Search Widget

Jason Shuffield — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 05:26:01 +0000

If you were here for last week’s lesson, we covered how to stop Google Gemini from reading our screens. If you missed that one, you can find it here: How To Stop Gemini From Reading Screen This week, I want to stick with the Google subject. Today, I wanted to cover something a little more fun. ‘What could this be?’, you might be asking. I’m going to show you how you can customize the Search…

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How To Check Your PC’s Reliability Score

Jim Hillier — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:26:48 +0000

Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 include a “Reliability Monitor” feature that will present a system stability rating from 1 to 10, and also help diagnose problematic apps/processes. However, the Reliability Monitor is tucked away and not easy to locate… unless you know how. Here is a screenshot of my Reliability Monitor in Windows 10 (click the image to enlarge): As you can see from the…

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